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Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

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Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#51

Post by pgcj_poster »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #39
ubercow13 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would Linux have succeeded to the extent it has without copyright? Its licensing model depends heavily on copyright law.

I guess the argument is that "copyleft" is not needed without "copyright". In particular, look at the four freedoms: 0) free to run the program as you wish, for any purpose 1) The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. 2) The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others. 3) The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. The only thi…

Copyright isn't the only thing that can keep people from having those freedoms -- even without copyright a developer could choose not to distribute the source code. It seems likely that less proprietary software would exist without copyright, though.

Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#52

Post by traveler01 »

tasubotadas wrote: post #10

I think it is quite likely that we as a society would be better off without any kind of copyright or IP. This might prevent some of the parties doing huge upfront investments in some of the projects, but if we learned something from OSS and, most importantly, Linux is that gradual and tiny improvements over 30 years can compound to a behemoth that eats any commercial solution for lunch.

> I think it is quite likely that we as a society would be better off without any kind of copyright or IP.

Well, I don't agree with that. Music, games, movies, need those kind of protections otherwise look at what happens in China...

This case though, it's only Oracle being Oracle. A stupid greedy corporation trying to profit on other's successes.

Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#54

Post by [deleted] »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #39
ubercow13 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would Linux have succeeded to the extent it has without copyright? Its licensing model depends heavily on copyright law.

I guess the argument is that "copyleft" is not needed without "copyright". In particular, look at the four freedoms: 0) free to run the program as you wish, for any purpose 1) The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. 2) The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others. 3) The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. The only thi…

[deleted]

Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#55

Post by logicOnly »

memset wrote: post #17
tasubotadas wrote: post #10

I think it is quite likely that we as a society would be better off without any kind of copyright or IP. This might prevent some of the parties doing huge upfront investments in some of the projects, but if we learned something from OSS and, most importantly, Linux is that gradual and tiny improvements over 30 years can compound to a behemoth that eats any commercial solution for lunch.

I am not sure I agree with this statement in the absolute. I think about art, and artists as a musician myself. One advantage of copyright is that it does, indeed, give artists recourse when people use their works without compensation. The photographer whose picture was copied and pasted onto an advertisement. The musician trying to sell their first album. You could argue that litigation is too costly for an individu…

As a little guy, I can't afford a lawyer, copyright only hurts me.

Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#56

Post by coldpie »

compsciphd wrote: post #47
donmcronald wrote: post #4

> Those in Oracle's camp say if its copyright is not protected, that will discourage innovation. Look at the way YouTube Content ID encourages innovation and then imagine GitHub Content ID. “Your repository contains 3 copyrighted method calls. You’ve been issued a copyright strike.” I’d love to see every open source repo on the internet go private for 1 day as a demonstration of what could be lost if copyright is all…

anyone who believes that GPLd dynamically linked libraries impact code written to use them effectively believes that APIs can be copyrighted. (ex: the FSF believes this).

You may be right, but can you supply a citation for this? I believe many open-core software vendors work around this idea by doing exactly what you suggest: creating an API barrier where the proprietary software lives on one side and the GPL'd software on the other. It requires some care so you don't cross GPL'd software into the proprietary side, but it's fairly common. I think the Linux Nvidia GPU driver works this way.

Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#57

Post by bosswipe »

It's shocking to me that two jury trials spent months considering arguments from lawyers and experts from all sides and carefully came to a decision only to have the appeals court throw that all away and impose the opposite ruling, twice. What was the point of the trials? I don't know why the Federal Circuit court is so biased towards maximalist interpretations of IP law but I really hope the Supreme Court slaps it down hard. Again.

Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#59

Post by logicOnly »

tasubotadas wrote: post #10

I think it is quite likely that we as a society would be better off without any kind of copyright or IP. This might prevent some of the parties doing huge upfront investments in some of the projects, but if we learned something from OSS and, most importantly, Linux is that gradual and tiny improvements over 30 years can compound to a behemoth that eats any commercial solution for lunch.

IP was never about society. It was a tool for the rich to create a monopoly on a product.

IP disproportionately helps organizations rather than individuals. And the major owners of those organizations are the 0.01% class

Re: Google and Oracle's decade-long copyright battle reaches Supreme Court

#60

Post by cturner »

memset wrote: post #17
tasubotadas wrote: post #10

I think it is quite likely that we as a society would be better off without any kind of copyright or IP. This might prevent some of the parties doing huge upfront investments in some of the projects, but if we learned something from OSS and, most importantly, Linux is that gradual and tiny improvements over 30 years can compound to a behemoth that eats any commercial solution for lunch.

I am not sure I agree with this statement in the absolute. I think about art, and artists as a musician myself. One advantage of copyright is that it does, indeed, give artists recourse when people use their works without compensation. The photographer whose picture was copied and pasted onto an advertisement. The musician trying to sell their first album. You could argue that litigation is too costly for an individu…

There is a documented situation where Getty attempted to charge an artist for their own work (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22340178).

The only reason we know of that particular case is because they happened to charge the original creator.

The dynamic is ripe for corruption. If Getty failed to report all the works they were collecting for, and instead siphoned money off on the side, how would anyone know?

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